9/15/10

I am down to my last two weeks in Arusha, I like to refer to it has the two week scramble. When I first got here I felt like I had all the time in the world, three months of teaching, exploring, learning Swahili, meeting new people, making new friends, bonding with the kids, enjoying my life and all that Tanzania has to offer. Now that my time is limited, and will surely fly by, I am panicked to visit Khans Chicken on the Bonnet one more time, spend as much time with the kids as possible, eat as many plantain chips as possible, and of course visit and spend time with all my friends at least once more before I leave. In the book Eat, Pray, Love, the author Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the difference of traveling through a town, and actually living in the town, creating a lifestyle. I will be sad to leave this life behind, the Tanzanian life; polepole, and hakuna matata(yes it really means no worries, and it is defiantly a motto here) but I also leave knowing that I will always have family here, and have meet some amazing people from all over the world who I will always have a special bond with.

That being said I will try to catch you up as much as possible from the last couple weeks, but just in case I forget anything, Jennie has a blog as well did a much better job blogging than I did so be sure to check out her blog http://jenniekwood.wordpress.com/. I apologize in advance for this being very scatterbrained, but that’s what happens when I don’t write for a while J

Last time I wrote I talked about two volunteers coming back to Arusha for one week, Kathleen and Victoria. It was so great to see familiar faces, and hear all about their travels around Africa. Vic who we also refer to as “mama” is pregnant, and I expected her to be exhausted, and well to be completely honest much bigger. She was the opposite, she looked amazing full of energy, and while her belly was bigger( although not as much as I expected) not much else changed in the five weeks I had seen them. I told her whenever I am pregnant and bitching and complaining I’m going to think to myself “what would Vic do?” and remind myself of her doing(but not limited to) a six hour hike three months pregnant, not to mention the horrible train rides she experienced traveling around Africa, she is defiantly a champ.

I was really excited for Jennie to meet Vic and Kathleen, because I had talked about them to each other and it is always nice for a friend from home to meet some of the amazing people that you meet in your travels(that way at least ONE person will know what your talking about when you say remember when….). The first night the girls arrived was a Thursday night which is a big night at a club called Via Via, which we of course had to go to because after all it was Kathleen’s last Thursday night in Arusha(like we need the excuse to go do some karaoke in Tanzania).

The next few days we spent hanging out with the kids, doing some souvenir shopping, eating lunch watching movies with the kids. Jennie and I took a morning to go to town and see the Rwanda Genocide Trials, that take place at the AICC(Arusha International Conference Center) building in Arusha. We got to see a trial that was somewhat interesting but hard to follow. You don’t get any information on what is going on as far as or is being tried, and for what. We saw a man being questioned about roadblock, and whether or not there were dead bodies on the roads. I’m sure most of you have seen the movie Hotel Rwanda which is a good movie, but for a more accurate, non-Hollywood movie of what happened you should check out the movie Sometimes in April, and make sure to have a box of Kleenex by you.

One thing that Jennie really wanted to do while she was here was to see a giraffe(how unfortunate to travel this whole way and to not see at least ONE twiga-giraffe) after a few trips to Nogorongoro crater fell through we realized that the best option was to go to the Arusha National Park, which is only about 30 minutes from where we live. I told Jennie I would go with her, I can’t image experiencing something like that all on your own, being in the safari vehicle and doing all the ooo-ing and ahh-ing all by yourself, isn’t ideal. Not that the safari driver wouldn’t have been someone to talk to but he has seen these things countless times so the excitement fades, as you can imagine. Our driver Charles picked us up at 8:00 and we headed for our game drive. The day started out cloudy in the morning, but as usual in Arusha by lunch time the sun is out and the clouds have disappeared. As we pulled into the gate of the park the first thing we saw was a little family of twiga, it was the perfect way to start off the drive and Jennie was very excited. Our drive was complete with a soundtrack that we ourselves provided that included music from the Lion King, Pochohantus, and other Disney songs, and of course some Kilimanjaro beers that our driver provided for us at 9:30 in the morning, TIA!!!

I had been telling Jennie about Khan’s Chicken on the Bonnet since she got into town, and told her that she had to go there at least once before she left town. So one random night, Kathleen, Vic, Solo, G, and I all went to go eat at one of my favorite restaurants in Arusha. This time Khan himself was there, and greeted us and told us to grab a plate fill it with the variety of salads (which is a mixture of veggie salads, potato salads, and even coleslaw type salads, sectioned out by how spicy each dish is) and he would bring the rest to our table. The last time I was there I only ate the chicken. This time Khan brought us three plates filled with different kinds of meat, one being chicken, another being beef, and the third was some type of lamb(I think). At home I am picky about the non-white meats that I eat, and typically stick to chicken and turkey. But I also have to try everything once, how do you know you don’t like something if you have never tried it? Yes sometimes you have to get passed the textures, and looks of certain things, but I have a strict “try it once” (when I was little we would say “try it, you like it!”) policy so I took small pieces of each meat, and I was very glad I did! I ended up eating more beef, and lamb than chicken. It was so tender and had amazing flavor to it, so no regrets on eating it!!! They also have the best Nan bread there that I’ve ever had. Khan cooks it right over the grill, and it’s warm, soft and chewy and I could easily eat three big pieces of it! All the girls loved the food, and we all agreed it is a must stop place for anyone travelling in Arusha. Khan came over at the end of dinner and made sure everything was okay, and handed us his business card, the reads: “Nadeem Khan (at the top) Khan’s Barbeque (on the left hand side, then lists the variety of food they have) Zubeda Autospares, dealers in: Injector pump, spares and services (on the right hand side). Auto shop by day, amazing chicken by night, genius.

Over Jennie’s last week we spent doing some last minute souvenir shopping, spending time at our favorite café called Africafe a place so amazing that it actually has to-go cups(now if that doesn’t make me feel like a “real” teacher I don’t know what does J) On Jennies last full day we decided to take the kids to a place called Mount Meru Game Lodge. It’s a beautiful lodge that has a sitting area where you can eat, drink and watch some wildlife go about their day. We saw zebras, peacocks, monkeys, antelope, and a few birds. We brought the kids some cookies and gave them some Fanta pop and we sat with them to watch the animals. It’s so sad to me that so many of the orphans in Tanzania will never see the amazing wildlife that their country as to offer. Mzungus travel form all over the world and spend thousands and thousands of dollars on trips to the national parks, and it cost us less then ten US dollars to get the kids in to see the animals.

Jennie left the next day, Tuesday night. We went into town to drop off her bags at Bariki’s office and then Jennie and I headed out to eat so she could get a good meal before the usually horrible plane food you get when leaving Tanzania. We went to Masai Café, a place that has amazing pizza, so we split a pizza had a salad and discussed the difficulties of returning home, sort of a reverse culture shock. I tried to give her some advice; although I’m not sure I was much help and maybe gave her more anxiety, when I told her how it will be hard for anyone to relate to what she has experienced here. At one point during dinner I looked over at her and said, “Welcome to the club, your life is officially changed forever”. I told her that she is lucky she will always have Erin and me to talk to about this experience because we will “get it”. Solo and Bariki drove us to the airport, which was complete with a soundtrack(provided by me, being the DJ that I am) of the songs that will always remind us of Tanzania, some Swahili bongo flava songs, and others are ones from home but we heard here over and over.

The first few days with Jennie gone were hard. I used to doing everything with someone, and spending 24/7 with the same person (and shockingly not getting annoyed, which my mom can tell you is rare). Even my first run in the village on my own was a little depressing not having a mzunugu running next to me. On Thursday I decided to go visit my friend Maria who runs the Future Happiness House. I figured it would be good for me to get out and see the girls there, and spend sometime with them. I decided to walk there instead of taking the daladala. Its about a 40 minute walk, and has Maria says “the while people love walking” so it doesn’t bother me. It’s a time where I just put my ipod in listen to good music, and take time to appreciate the environment that I am in(because even after three months I still sometimes think to myself, ‘holy shit I live in an Africa village’).

When I got there the girls came running outside to greet me, saying teacher Lindsay! I immediately felt at home. I sat with the girls for a while and they taught me how to make some bracelets. We talked about favorite colors, and favorite foods, things they liked to do. Then it was time for the girls to take a bath, so Maria had the dada cook up a ton of food (even though I insisted I wasn’t hungry, I hate a mixture of beans and maze, oranges, cucumber, and avocado) and we sat at the kitchen table and she told me about her life. She told me about the time she found out she was pregnant, and her boyfriend left her and she hasn’t seen him since the day she told him. She told me about not knowing how she would provide for her and her son, and she at one point had to leave her son with her brother and his wife and go to another town( by foot) to find work, not seeing her son for months at a time. Her and her son used to sleep on the floor of a small hut, and she always had a bible with her that her son would use as a pillow, can you imagine? She was crying, I was crying, I couldn’t believe all this woman had been through in only four years, it’s enough grief to last a lifetime. At the end of it she looked me in the eye and told me she would never go back to that life, because she has her son Brian now, and because of him she has to keep looking forward and not look back. Her life changed when she meet a Canadian lady who she calls her “Canadian mama” and gave her some money to feed her son, and helped her get on her feet, and now she is the headmaster of an orphanage. It is amazing how just a little help can completely change someone’s life.

This past weekend I was able to do something that I have always wanted to do in Tanzania, attend a wedding! Bariki and Solo’s cousin got married on Saturday and they invited me to go. We didn’t go to the actually ceremony which apparently started four hours late because the groom decided to do everything himself and he ran out of time! I asked Bariki if that was typical he said not at all, and that many people in the tribe were not happy and would have a talking with the groom after the wedding. So we attended the reception portion. When you walked in there were a ton of tables set up, only for I think close family and relatives. Behind the tables were a bunch of plastic lawn chairs set up in rows. Everyone was facing the “center table” which looked more like a cheesy background for an old school prom photo. There were tons of twinkle lights in the background, and than four chairs, two for the bride and groom, and two for the best man and maid of honor. The bride was in a typical white wedding dress, and the groom in a white suit. The maid of honor and best man pretty much matched the bride and groom, no the bride is not the only one in white! A man spoke in Swahili for at least two hours, no idea what he was saying, but many times people would break out saying yeyeyyeeeee(if you’ve seen me on thanksgiving then you know I fit right in!). The groom has a turn to speak, as well as the bride and then everyone eats! The food was very good, although you had to eat it with your hands, which I am still not used to, so you kind of just have to ball the rice up and use it to soak all the other sauces and dishes. Everyone also had their choice of pop, I choose a Fanta. Right after you are done eating (and you have to stay to eat, it’s very rude to leave earlier, plus most people only go for the food), people approach the bride and groom and give their congrats, and drop money and or gifts into a basket. I’m very glad I got to go it was quite an experience!

The next two weeks I will be running around like a madwoman trying to say goodbye to everyone and see all the people that I have meet along my journey, and on top of that spending as much time with the kids as I can! Hopefully I will have time to blog once more before I head home, but I will defiantly try and post pictures soon!

The kids at Mount Meru Lodge

Painting our nails....yes that is a boy to the right of me who also painted his nails, but only every other!!!

Some places to check out....

Here are a few links of some places that I have talked about in my blog...

KNM Tanzania:

www.meieats.com/stu

All Girls Orphanage:

http://www.futurehappiness.org.au/homepage4.php?view=home

Lovely pictures...

Teaching the kids how to multiply 9's by using the finger trick!

Visiting an all girls orphanage called Future Happiness Home...amazing girls and I plan to go back there this trip and stay a night with them!

Had to put this one in...Jennie and I made the houseboy search for an abnormally large spider that was creeping around our room. Eventually he found it and squished it in his fingers and then almost attacked Jennie with it, I documented the whole thing....Erin you would've been proud.

Teacher Jennie, shes a regular Bob Ross....yes we have the kids calling her BOB ROSS....watch some public television if you don't know who he is...